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Saturday, February 13, 2016

Another miscarriage...

After a month of bleeding from my miscarriage in November, December passed by quickly with a celebration for my friend's wedding in New York and then back to California for Christmas. No complications or serious bleeding. Then January 8th rolled around and things started to change. I started bleeding again, more than 2 weeks before my expected menstrual cycle. More headaches, drowsiness, bloating. At first I thought it was just the "irregular bleeding" my OB had warned me might happen over the next few months and when it slowed down, then stopped a week later, I let it go. Then 3 days later the bleeding started again. After another week and a half of bleeding and severe headaches, I called my OB, I'd had enough. His nurse said the irregular bleeding could last up to 6 months but when I'd told her I'd been going through this for several months before my miscarriage, she agreed that I needed to see the doctor and possibly have a biopsy to make sure there wasn't something seriously wrong.

On January 29th, my husband left work early and drove me to the OB. You have to take a pregnancy test before any biopsy, standard procedure but what threw us for a loop was that it came back positive! We were speechless, even my OB was shocked! I'd only been back on birth control for 2 months, so we all agreed it wasn't 100% but I'd always used it to control my hormones, I never actually needed it to prevent a pregnancy!

Instead of a biopsy, we were now being prepped for an ultrasound. You hear stories of people getting pregnant "naturally" after going through years of IVF but I was on birth control, I only have one fallopian tube to get an egg to my uterus and sex wasn't exactly at the top of our "to do" list after a miscarriage, traveling and the holidays...it didn't seem possible. And then we saw it, a sack! "Oh shit!" was literally the only thing I could say. It was overwhelming! Joy, fear and shock were running through my body, followed by a million questions. Was I seriously pregnant or was this leftover tissue, was this pregnancy going to be healthy...I'm almost 38, holy cow did my eggs finally soften enough to really be pregnant...what next?!?

"This is either a VERY early pregnancy or you were pregnant but it's abnormal and you're going to miscarry again. Let's run an HCG and progesterone test and we'll go from there," was my OB's response. We went straight downstairs, drew some blood and told our parents what had happened. No one knew how to react...mostly we didn't want to get too excited. Blood work came back the next day confirming that I was pregnant but chances that it was a healthy pregnancy were low because my progesterone count was almost nonexistent. We ran the test again 3 days later and it was clear this wasn't a healthy pregnancy. My counts had only risen to 197 when they should have been well over 300, not a good sign.

The next day I was back at the hospital, this time for another ultrasound to find out what was really happening. They only confirmed that there was something in my uterus but it was time to find out if it was leftover tissue from the previous pregnancy or if it was in fact a second abnormal pregnancy. Finally, on February 3rd my husband and I were back in my OB's office for a biopsy but for completely different reasons. I never expected a biopsy to be easy but I never knew how uncomfortable it could really be and I'm glad it didn't last any longer than it did! The only good news was that the irregular bleeding should stop soon enough and we'd essentially be giving my uterus a bit of a fresh start. The next day my OB's diagnosis was confirmed...it was an unexpected abnormal pregnancy and all of the bleeding was the beginning of another miscarriage.

Now, 10 days later, I'm still lightly spotting, headaches come and go but it's the pure physical and mental exhaustion of a miscarriage that is knocking me on my butt. I still have to have my HGC count checked every week until it hits zero...last Monday was at 99, so I'm hoping zero isn't too far off. I'm trying to rest and move on but I can't help but think of the next step. Clearly we CAN get pregnant naturally now but should we? I'm almost 38 and my husband just turned 42...what are the possible complications that come along with our age? Do I even produce enough hormones to sustain a natural pregnancy? Do we try to get pregnant naturally and possibly face another miscarriage or wait until May like we'd planned and try another embryo transfer that's closely monitored? Maybe this was all a one time thing, maybe we'll never get pregnant on our own again but at least we know there's even the possibility of "maybe." We have options that we've never had before and it feels confusing and a little overwhelming but exciting at the same time. For now I need to rest, let my body heal and when the time comes we'll decide what feels right for us.